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Topic: How to get the info off old hard drive (Read 4679 times)

The old computer went kaput. Something on the mother board gave out I think. So I take out the hard drive and put it into an external drive hooked to the new computer. THEN..... The son-in-law tells me that all the stuff was put into that hard drive through the mother board and RAM and what ever in the old computer and so I can't get to everything. :roll:

Silly me. I was hoping that I could possible access that hard drive and use it as it has everything on it.

But nooooo....

All the wife's games..... I have to dig around and find all the original disk cause it won't let me simply move the stuff over.

Then the internet explorer. I use firefox. I was at least hoping to get the bookmarks from the old one. But I can't find them. Does anyone know where they are stored?

OK. If you are wondering, the old hard drive has the old hook up. 40 something pins. The new computer has the new fangled stream lined connections..... Just can't leave nuttin' alone. :-\

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:rainbowflower: Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. :rainbowflower:

The old drive is IDE and the new is SATA. Better stuff, bigger drives, not backward compatable. :roll:

Well, there's lots of ways to keep from losing stuff, but you have to have them set up ahead of time :roll:. Firefox has a Xmarks add on for bookmarks.

As far as the old drive...the data there should all be available...as long as you are going windows to windows. Not necessarily pretty, and it won't run most of the programs, but the data should be there. Yup...reinstall all the programs from disk. But if you had pictures...they should all be there and you only need to copy to the new.

As far as bookmarks...I found mine at: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile\bookmarks.html", c being the drive letter of the old drive.

What I am talking about is like when you have a place you go to often, or maybe something you want to get back to some time in the future you go to the top of the window and click on "BOOKMARKS" then click on "BOOKMARK THIS PAGE" . Then later you can just go up there find the place you want and click on it and go there. I had a whole bunch of them that now I am going to have to go scouring the whole internet again to see if I can find it again.

I get to here E:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile then when I click on it it takes me here;

are you using "windows explorer" to do this?it sounds like you're using "internet explorer"the first is for messing around on your computerthe second is for looking around the internetyou want the first

are you using "windows explorer" to do this?it sounds like you're using "internet explorer"the first is for messing around on your computerthe second is for looking around the internetyou want the first

Dave

Pretend you're talking to a first grader.

The first what is for messing around the computer? If you are talking about this as the first;

E:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile

It does nothing but sit there looking at me until I click on it and then I end up on the web site when I do :?

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:rainbowflower: Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. :rainbowflower:

ok, there's your problem :)firefox is for messing around on the internetyou need to mess around on your computerlet me think how we can do thisopen firefox, your used to thisgo to the menu that says bookmarks and see if there's something there labeled "manage bookmarks"if you find it, click it, an window will open, look for a menu at the top that says "import bookmarks"that's what you want to do, import the bookmarks from your old hardriveif you get this far let me know and I'll try to walk you through the next steps, it's not hardwhat version of windows are you using, stuff looks different on different versions

I go to the old drive now "E" drive and click on book marks and it has the same book marks as what is now on the new hard drive.... with out any import or export.... none of the old book marks. Sometimes I wonder if it jump back to "C" drive.

Maybe they are just gone.

Logged

:rainbowflower: Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. :rainbowflower:

how are you doing this? what program are you using to "go to the old harddrive"?it's hard to tell what you're doing without looking over your shoulderthere are two ways to do thisin the first, when you are done and you go look at your bookmarks you'll see a folder labled "imported bookmarks" all your old stuff will be therein the second all the bookmarks on the new computer will be wiped out and you just see things just like the used to bewhich way do you want to go?don't give up, this is doable, I just don't want to send you down a path that messes stuff up

why don't you pull your hard drive. buy a case with a USB plug in at some geek store. run old drive as a slave drive. you keep all info and don't have to transfer. you should be able to import bookmarks, etc from one drive to another without to much trouble if you want to.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

why don't you pull your hard drive. buy a case with a USB plug in at some geek store. run old drive as a slave drive. you keep all info and don't have to transfer. you should be able to import bookmarks, etc from one drive to another without to much trouble if you want to.

That is what I have,

iMicro3.5" IDE HDD External Enclosure

Plugs into USB port

I go to start menuGo to my computerClick on local disk (E:)the follow the path..... Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile

Logged

:rainbowflower: Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. :rainbowflower:

you may have to find the specific file that has the bookmarks and do an old fashioned file copy. i bet if you do a google search, someone else has posted how to do it and you can just follow their steps.

Logged

.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I dont know if you can do this or not but there are computer to computer cables, like the ethernet cable but two of the wires are switched around, and transfer stuff that way. I think maybe it has to be 2 computers up and running to do that. My motehrboard just went out also, Im sure you read, so I just replaced it and used the old harddrive.

I know it doesn't help now, but it can prevent the issue in the future. There is a plug-in for firefox called xmarks. It stores you bookmarks on a server and if you have multiple computers, it keeps you book marks in sync. I use it and it is great.